


And the Sun Hits Ground

by steggyisimmortal



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steggyisimmortal/pseuds/steggyisimmortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU of the Agent Carter episode Iron Ceiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There was a whirlwind of activity when Peggy returned from lunch at the Automat. Agents were bustling around, some with armfuls of papers and pencils draped over both ears. When she’d left everything had been as normal – men sitting around drinking coffee and reading the paper while a select few lackeys, herself included, were going through old reports and files. 

After securing her belongings at her desk, she quickly caught sight of Daniel coming out of the storage room with a binder under his arm.

“Daniel, what’s going on?”

“We just got a coded message in from Europe. A cryptographer came from Arlington Hall to try and crack it but he uh – stinks at his job.”

She followed him into the conference room where Dooley and Thompson were standing near the man mentioned. There were numerous books opened on the table in front of the smaller man. He appeared to be flustered to have Dooley and Thompson crowding over him.

“… probably not a German cipher or the Turing Method would work,” he was saying, standing up from his work. The men continued to go back and forth but she paid no mind to them.

Peggy glanced around at the books and spied the message on top of one closest to her. 

“May I see it?”

She didn’t bother to wait for approval. Her eyes perused the letters, immediately recognizing the pattern. She’d seen it at Bletchley during her studies. 

“It’s a one–time pad system. Where did this come from?”

“You don’t think I tried a pad?” the smaller man defended himself.

“Germany,” Dooley said over him.

She glanced up at him. “Did you account for the original message being written in German?”

He had nothing to say so she returned her attention to the paper. It looked simple enough but in between the patterns of letters were numbers, ones that shouldn’t have been there. Codes were either written in numbers or letters but never both. Each operation had their own way of doing it but all the codes followed the patterns and keys. It was almost as if…

“There’s a message within the code,” Peggy realized.

The Chief’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“What are you talking about, Carter?” Thompson tacked on.

“Whoever encrypted this code included something they didn’t want those around them to see. And it doesn’t make any sense in German so they must speak a different language.” She grabbed a blank sheet of paper and a nearby pencil. Her eyes followed the letters as her hand wrote down the obvious message. “Return rightful property of…Manticore…or prisoners will die.”

“Manticore?” Thompson murmured lowly. “What is that?”

“The Persian’s answer to the Egyptian Sphinx,” Sousa recalled. “Body like a lion, human head, shark-like teeth.”

“No,” Dooley interjected, holding his hand up as if that had the power to stop him from speaking. “It’s a rumored war division of Germany and Russia. Rumor had it select individuals came together during the war to create a deep organization to infiltrate the Allies and the Nazis, to destroy any who opposed the viewpoints of the right way. Everyone always believed it was a myth.”

“Return…. formula and…documents or innocent… people will die,” Peggy finished.

“What the hell are they talking about?” Sousa wondered quietly beside her, most likely to himself. Peggy chose to ignore him. 

“October 27th.”

“That must be our deadline. That’s three days from now.”

“Yeah but for what?”

Peggy drew a line across the middle of the page to separate the messages. “Dr. Maria Vaselli. Prisoner… of Manticore. Others with… me. Please help. 47 degrees 44 minutes north. 13 degrees two minutes east.”

Thompson looked confused, a familiar look for him. “Vaselli? Who’s that?”

“She’s an Italian born scientist,” Peggy filled in. She stood straight from her work. “She worked with Dr. Erskine during the war. I helped remove him from Europe but she chose to stay in Italy. She wanted to stay and help her people from the destruction she knew was coming. She helped develop the formula for Project Rebirth.”

In other words, she was one third of the equation that created Steve.

Peggy had met Dr. Vaselli. She’d found her to be an honest woman who wanted to use science and medicine for the good of the people. Peggy had been hesitant in leaving the woman behind but she’d understood the woman’s reasoning. She’d needed to stay with her people to help protect them from the evil in the world. 

“So they want her to recreate the program,” Dooley figured, snapping his fingers a few times.

“Only they won’t be able to,” Peggy murmured somberly. “Erskine, Howard Stark, and Vaselli each contain their respective parts of the formula. Howard and Vaselli each contributed minor parts; the bulk of the project’s success was due to the work Erskine had done while in Germany. None of it is written down. They weren’t even sure it would work in the first place but Erskine forbade any of them to write down their research on the matter. That kind of information was too powerful for the wrong hands. With Erskine dead, it would take a countless number of years to replicate the formula.”

“So they want Captain America’s blood and all the information the SSR has on the procedure,” Sousa finished for her.

Peggy nodded. “Exactly.”

“What about these others?” Thompson wondered. “Are they POWs? Are they SSR agents? How do we know it’s this doctor who’s actually the one sending the message? Maybe Carter read it wrong.”

Peggy’s eyes snapped to his. She was growing sick and tired of him trying to undermine her work when he knew damn well it was on par with his. She wasn’t a prideful woman so she wouldn’t dare say out loud how she truly felt on that matter.

“I can assure you, Agent Thompson, I did not read it wrong.” Her tone was biting. “Dr. Vaselli is an honest woman. Dr. Erskine thought very highly of her and I do as well.”

Dooley was quiet from his corner by the window. There was no telling what he was thinking. He was a confusing man. Most of the time, she knew he thought of her as an annoyance, extra baggage. Someone he had to babysit simply because she’d worked with Captain America during the war. But occasionally he’d give her projects that actually fit with her skill set. Of course, it wasn’t anything like she was used to but she’d take breaking codes and translating over continuously answering phones and fetching coffee. 

It wasn’t much, and it bored her to tears, but she’d be buried six feet under before she complained.

Much, anyway.

“Yauch, Ramirez – pack up. You’re going to Germany.”

The agents behind her clapped their hands together before filing out of the room in a hurry.

“Yauch, Ramirez, and Carter,” Peggy corrected the older gentleman. She was sure she looked like she was ready for a fight. She could hear the steam blowing out of Thompson’s ears behind her. Dooley just looked at her like she was crazy. Peggy wasn’t about to back down from this fight, though. She owed it not only to Maria but to Dr. Erskine to help save her. “There is no one more qualified for this mission, sir. I am going.”

Thompson erupted in loud complaints immediately. Peggy gave back as good as she got.

“Both of you, in my office!” Dooley shouted over them. Peggy shut her mouth immediately. She wasn’t foolish enough to continue complaining. That wasn’t the way to win over the chief. She’d wait for her moment before striking with irrefutable evidence of her claim.

Dooley shut his office door behind the trio, which is precisely when Thompson started up his campaign again.

“We don’t know exactly what we’re getting into over there,” he explained. “We don’t know what type of building, what the area’s like, the enemies that might be around. It’s great Carter cracked the code; I’m proud of her, I am.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. Only this man could make code breaking sound like a six year old successfully writing their name in cursive. 

“But I need brawn over there, not brain. I need...”

“Someone who speaks the language and understands the region,” Peggy completed for him. “I can speak Italian and German. Seeing as how Vaselli doesn’t speak much English that might prove to be useful. I spent three years in the mud of the European theater – eastern front, western front, and everything in between.”

“Yeah,” Thompson cut in snidely, “surrounded by some of our best men.”

“Carter, put yourself in my shoes,” Dooley said not unkindly. “I send you out there and you get killed, I’m the moron who got a woman killed in action. I send you and one of my guys buys it, I’m the one who set him up to die. I know you spent time in Germany but we’re putting together a European tac team that knows the terrain.”

“Not like I do. Not like the 107th regiment.” Her voice was strong, firm. She refused to be pushed to the sidelines anymore. She needed to feel useful, to remember why she did this job.

“Europeans don’t even know it as well as them. You think I wouldn’t snatch them up if I could?” Thompson wondered rhetorically but Peggy had long since drowned him out of her mind.

She saw her opportunity. If this was the only way, she’d gladly play her hand. “What would you say if I could deliver them?”

“I’d say pack your bags but that’s not gonna happen.” Dooley didn’t look as doubtful as Thompson but Peggy wasn’t going to leave them any room to doubt her. She tore out of the room without another word.

She heard Thompson clap his hands with glee as she left.

“Put him on,” Peggy said by way of greeting when Jim’s voice came over the line a minute later. She could hear shuffling for a beat before she heard Steve’s voice. “Where are you now?”

“You don’t want me to try and pronounce it,” Steve warned. She heard a paper rustle. “Uh, we’re about 107 kilometers northwest of Munich. We just finished up a few hours ago. What’s up?”

“I need you to meet me and a team of agents at a point not far from you in a day’s time. An Italian scientist is being held captive and requires retrieval. She’s done work with Dr. Erskine.”

She didn’t need to say more. Steve understood the implications behind the meaning of that.

“What’re the coordinates?”

Peggy relayed the necessary information. “There’ll be four agents including myself. We’ll meet you three kilometers east of these coordinates,” she glanced at her watch as she calculated the time it would take,” around 0900 tomorrow morning your time.”

She could practically hear him nod in that set way of his. She could hear one of the men in the background saying something to Steve.

“Dugan wants you to bring him a bottle of bourbon as payment for this favor.”

“He’ll do this favor because I’m ordering him to and war or no, I still outrank him,” she corrected sternly. The Commandos had become like family to her throughout the years they’d known each other. She was the sister that kept them all in line when they started bickering and in return they all rushed to her defense whenever they thought she needed it. Of course they’d been told repeatedly, scathingly on a few occasions, that she did not require their help to fight her battles but they’d hear nothing on the subject. Though they could be rather uncouth most of the time, they were always gentlemen with her. However, they didn’t hesitate to treat her like one of the boys when the occasion called for it. She sighed fondly. “But I suppose I can. Is there anything you’d like me to bring, Captain?’

She couldn’t help the way her voice went soft at her last words. She wasn’t exactly the type to fawn over a man. It was just this particular man that broke her walls and allowed her to relinquish the tight reins of her professional demeanor.

“Just yourself,” his voice equally as soft. She bit back a moan. That silky smooth tone always succeeded in making her want to devour him whole. It was a shame the next time they’d see one another they’d be surrounded by several others. Well, never let it be said that Peggy Carter wasn’t a resourceful woman. 

“0900.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Hanging up the phone, Peggy held back a satisfied sigh. Getting Steve and the Commandos on board was the easy part. Dooley and Thompson on the other hand… Thompson wouldn’t like it but she wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines anymore.

She marched into Dooley’s office beaming with confidence.


	2. Chapter 2

The vibrations of the engines underneath her brought back fond memories for Peggy. She didn’t think she would miss this aspect of her life, or more precisely memories that reminded her of the war, but she couldn’t deny that she had missed it. Missed being useful and serving a purpose that benefited the greater good rather than some lazy men who couldn’t be bothered to fetch their own coffee. 

She’d missed the thrills that war brought about. Jumping from planes, gunfights with the enemy, fist fights in an attempt to fight for her last breath – fetching coffee and answering phones had no chance in matching the thrill of getting her hands dirty. 

She would never admit it out loud but she sometimes grew jealous of Steve. He was still out and about, traipsing from country to country, doing work for the SSR. He and the Commandos were rounding up all the Nazi officers they could find and doing whatever else asked of them. Steve was far too polite to say no but when she’d last seen him, she could tell he was wearing thin. He was exhausted but he wouldn’t rest until there were no more orders coming in.

Peggy often wondered whether she should put her foot down or not. She certainly had no right to speak for him but she wouldn’t let them take advantage of him either.

She could be a frightful woman where Steve was concerned. 

Thompson inhaled sharply across from her as the plane dipped in altitude. He wasn’t as confident as she was used to seeing him. He’d been gloriously quiet throughout most of the trip. In the twelve hour plane ride, he’d spoken only a handful of sentences to Yauch and Ramirez.   
While the other two had used most of the duration of the flight to sleep, Thompson had gone back and forth between looking nervously out the windows and rubbing his palms against the tops of this thighs. 

“Relax. You’ll sprain something,” she called over to him. “It’s just as you remember it.” 

“You a mind reader or is it that your woman’s intuition speaking?” he asked sarcastically. 

“Well, how’s this for woman’s intuition? This is your first jump, isn’t it?” she asked, slipping on her gloves. She didn’t bother to watch his face for a reaction. She knew she was right on the money.

“Ninth.” Hmm. That didn’t add up with his reaction. She glanced over at him. Thompson looked down at his hands sheepishly. “Eight training jumps.”

“You’ve infiltrated hostile territory before,” she reminded. “You’ll be fine. Just follow our lead.”

But that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy a subtle dig when given the chance.

“Thanks, Carter, but I already have a mother.” The pilot’s voice interrupted, announcing their drop location closing in. Peggy tried to resist the urge to roll her eyes at her colleague. He went through the motions of puffing up his chest, trying to be his normal confident self. “What I need right now are soldiers.”

At that she did roll her eyes. 

“The drop will put us six miles from our rendezvous with our tac team, assuming they’re where they’re supposed to be.”

“They’ll be there,” she assured. His eyes met hers. She could tell he still had his doubts, that he wasn’t about to trust her word. His lack of faith had ceased to astound her.

“They better be.” 

PCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSR

“Carter, in back,” Thompson barked his orders. Really, the man needed to stop being so predictable. 

The area was quiet to her relief. The forested area was relatively dense. There was a light layer of snow on the ground that Peggy predicted would be melted away by nightfall. Pine trees littered the ground in clustered groups but she could see fresh buds on the angiosperms. Spring was a short skip away but the plants had to wage war with the persistent mountain snow. The day was overcast but Peggy could see the sun trying to poke through the thick clouds every once in a while. It made for better traveling conditions; nothing they were wearing would catch a reflection in their enemy’s eyes.

A series of twigs snapping caught the agent’s attention. At once, the men had their guns up and pointed in every direction. Peggy hesitated behind them. 

“Don’t move,” came a voice they couldn’t see. 

“Bobbysockers,” said a different voice, this one with a familiar accent. Peggy smirked.

Thompson actually lowered his gun a tick. He looked at Ramirez, whispering in confusion. 

“Knickerbockers,” the accent said. “Trolley knocks.”

“Now you’re just making up words. Peggy, Dum Dum forgot the password again,” James Falsworth ratted on his friend.

“We should make it ‘beer,’” Jim Morita suggested. One by one, the men came out of the trees. “I bet he’d remember that.”

“We’re in Germany,” Gabe Jones reminded. “People hear us say that, they’ll think we’re offering them some or looking for the nearest pub.”

Jacques Dernier added his commentary, gaining a laugh from Gabe and Peggy. 

“I could always go for a beer so maybe it’s not a bad idea,” Timothy Dugan agreed to the password change, stepping out from his cover behind the trunk of a large larch tree. “Hi, Peggy.”

Peggy lowered the guns of Yauch and Ramirez; Thompson had already dropped his. She smiled at the sight of her friends. It had been too long since she’d last seen them. It was nice to have familiar, friendly faces surrounding her again.

“We’re not making the password ‘beer,’” Peggy firmly informed Dugan. 

“Why not?” he asked, his voice actually bordering on whining. She knew he wasn’t serious. It had taken her a while to get used to the teasing nature of the men but once she had, it had been like gaining five extra brothers who joked around with her mercilessly. She enjoyed it, though. She liked that this lot could see her as an equal rather than as a burden like so many before them. 

She turned to look at the man when she met a familiar set of blue eyes over Thompson’s shoulder. She couldn’t help the tug she felt at the corners of her mouth.

“Because I won the bet so I got to pick the password.” Like a moth to a flame, everyone turned to look as Steve emerged from the forest. She could hear gasps from the agents but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her love. Steve’s eyes found Dugan’s in the group of men. “And it’s Trolley Dodgers, by the way. Where the hell’d you get knickerbockers?”

Dugan waved it off. “I don’t know. It sounded like something Peggy would pick. Besides, my mouth won’t let me say,” his fingers fluttered in the air between them and he shook his head, “those words you said. It’s against my religion.” 

The men had a good natured team rivalry going on. It was something that Peggy didn’t pretend to understand. American sports weren’t her forte; neither were British ones really. But Steve was doing solid work at slowly whittling away a place for his beloved team in her heart. Many hours she had suffered at the fireside listening to them spout names and statistics to things she would never care for.

Yauch and Thompson parted like the Red Sea for Steve, allowing him to be almost toe to toe with her. She should back up a touch, just enough to remove suspicion. But after two and a half weeks without him, she needed to see with her own eyes that he was safe and alive in front of her. Her eyes brushed up and down his body quickly, not wanting to make it too obvious that’s what she was doing. His combat uniform was a little worse for wear but there were no tears in it that she could see. His face was a little dirty but no more so than the rest of the men. 

She wanted to pull his body against hers and run her hands all over him. It came from the purely practical side of her brain. She needed to make sure he hadn’t been harmed. Super soldier or not, she worried. Always had and always would. On the other side of her brain, it was for far more lustful reasons. While she didn’t need him at her side at all hours of the day, almost three weeks was far too long to be without his arms around her, to be without his soft and supple kiss. She’d missed his whisper in her ear in the middle of the night, a soft murmur of her name or words of affection. She’d missed listening to him and talking to him about their days. 

New York never failed to grow dull upon Steve’s exit but the lights were never brighter than upon his return. 

Peggy drew her body up to its full height, matching Steve’s stance in front of her. “Late as always I see.”

“Well, you know,” he shrugged sheepishly. There was a hint of a smirk on his lips, everything about him screaming ‘little boy’ to her. “Gotta keep up appearances at this point. Don’t wanna disappoint you with punctuality.” 

“Heavens, no,” she murmured softly, her tone light and teasing. Back home, Steve was pleasantly punctual, always early to pick her up for their dates. On the front, he employed his knack for a dramatic entrance. “That might cause me to go into cardiac arrest.”

That drew a laugh from him before he stepped away to face the men with her.

“Fellas,” Steve greeted.

Peggy started. She’d forgotten about their audience. Steve had a habit of doing that to her, it seemed.

She caught the eyes of the agents with her. Her trail ended with Thompson, holding his eyes almost with defiance. “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce the Howling Commandos.”

She went down the line with the introductions, introducing each of her friends to her colleagues. 

“You… You’re Captain America,” Yauch practically drooled. Peggy smothered a grin, noticing that Gabe and Jim were doing the same thing. Many things made Steve uncomfortable since his transformation but nothing more so than people who looked at him like he was a living legend.

“Uh, yeah,” Steve scratched the back of his head, or what he could of it. His helmet was blocking most of it. As if reading her thoughts, he reached up and removed the headpiece. “That’s me.”

“It is such an honor to meet you,” Ramirez fawned. His eyes were wide and bright. “It was a great day when they found you in the ice.”

“Uh, thank you. For me, too.”

Peggy decided to save him from anymore fawning.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to take a look at the area we’re dealing with?”

Morita stepped forward. “It’s a few miles southwest of Salzburg. Not too many guards on the outside; we counted three that made continuous rounds in the same patterns. Facility is an abandoned factory, or appears to have been abandoned at any rate. What type of factory, we have yet to figure out. We were hoping you’d be able to tell.”

He looked at Peggy while he spoke, clearly speaking to her.

That was a problem for Thompson.

“I’m running point for the SSR,” Thompson informed them all, quite needlessly in Peggy’s opinion. He was like a dog that nudged anything it could just to elicit a response from its owners as if to remind them of its presence. “We’ll head east through Munich. We should reach Salzburg before nightfall. Might have time to check things out before breaking in and giving these guys a surprise.”

Six sets of eyes turned to Peggy. Thompson’s brows raised, no doubt wondering why no one was moving or answering. He looked between the Commandos and Peggy.

Peggy herself was confused as well. While Thompson’s plan had been made with absolutely no thought as to strategy, Steve was normally the first to speak up in situations such as these. Peggy had always been present in the strategy meetings, her insight on different cities and code patterns proving useful to take the enemy. She never had to say much in the form of corrections whenever a potential error arouse. Steve’s mind worked strikingly like hers. 

“Peggy?” Steve inquired. He looked at her like he had so many times before, wondering if his decision was right or whether she thought he could do better.

It was like a switch being flipped.

“It’s broad daylight,” she turned to Thompson. “It’ll still be decently light by the time we reach our location. We can still do reconnaissance around the facility to form our plan for retrieval but we’ll have to make camp after that. They’re on guard so they’ll be expecting an attack within the next few hours or in the early hours of night since their deadline for us is midnight tonight. They won’t kill her because they need her and they’ll get desperate, which means they’ll make mistakes. They’ll stretch their people out thin, allowing us our chance to surround them and rescue the doctor and prisoners.”

“There’s a place we can stay about two clicks away,” Steve interjected, clearly on board with that plan. “We’ve stayed there before.”

Peggy gave Steve a curt nod. Thompson appeared to ponder this for a moment before doing the same. 

“So how are we getting there?” Ramirez spoke up. 

“We’ll head straight through to Munich,” Thompson answered. He held his chin high, looking off in the distance as if trying to find the closest road. “Then we should be able to take a straight shot to Salzburg.”

Dugan shook his head. 

“It’s like a minefield of enemy camps between here and Munich. The city is fine, so’s Dachau, but there’s no straight shot about it.”

“We can head out for about thirty miles along the main road out of the city before we’ll have to take some back roads and a few detours to avoid the few Nazi camps still holding out.”

Everyone looked at Steve. He had a commanding way about him when he spoke. When he spoke, those around him stopped everything and listened to him and followed him blindly because of his conviction. Part of it came from his “Captain America” training but Peggy knew that it was Steve Rogers at his core. 

“There are some friendlies around that’ll help us avoid the Nazi camps they know of around their areas. They shouldn’t see us in our travels.”

“What, we’re gonna walk to Salzburg?” Thompson wondered, incredulous. His jaw was set tightly, undoubtedly displeased people weren’t agreeing with his plan.

The Commandos were unlike other soldiers. They weren’t like Dooley. They wouldn’t sit back and let Thompson have his way because he seemed to know what his subject. They operated under a faithful chain of command and didn’t take to having others disrupt it. 

Steve smiled his most charming smile. “Well, you can” he clapped Thompson on the back, walking past him. “But we’ve got rides. C’mon, Peggy.”

There was no disguising Peggy’s smirk as she stepped around Thompson. She tossed a look at him in passing but his face remained passive while his jaw tightened. She saw the others filing out after her with Thompson picking up the rear.

She followed Steve around a dense collection of conifers and shrubs to reveal his bike and a Dodge WC62. From the size of it, Peggy doubted it would hold all of them and their gear comfortably for their journey. 

Steve peeked back at her over his shoulder. “Up for a brisk ride through the countryside?”

His voice was low enough so only she could hear. Her brow raised in peaked interest. That was all the answer he needed.

He turned around to face the group. “We’ll stay up front. Should be a pretty straight drive with no issues but I’ll keep the comm nearby.”

“Yeah, just remember we’re not in a race,” Morita complained. “We’re not trying to set any speed records.”

“I can slow it down if you guys want,” Steve offered a compromise but they all knew he would do no such thing.

“No, no,” Monty waved his hand at the offer. “We’ll just leave now so we can get a modicum of a head start before you pass us in five minutes.”

Dernier said something in French, causing Gabe and Peggy to laugh in complimenting tones. Steve looked between the two. Peggy had been teaching him French here and there but Steve only trusted his ability to speak the basics so far. He could understand most of what was written in the messages Peggy had shown him but he still struggled to keep up when listening to people speak it. 

He fixed his eyes on Peggy, silently asking her what was so funny. She shook her head still smiling, a gesture that told him she’d fill him in later.

The men started filing around their vehicle. They passed their packs to Dugan, who tossed them into the back. Steve and Gabe checked their radios to make sure they were still working properly. Peggy handed her pack over to Dugan as well, making sure to first tell him to be gentle with it as his favor resided inside one of the pockets. He cradled it like a baby before placing it up front where he’d join Monty for the drive. She handed over her rifle as well. She didn’t think they’d come across any trouble but her pistol strapped to her thigh would be adequate protection. 

She made her way to Steve’s motorcycle. The seat was just long enough for two people. It wouldn’t be tremendously comfortable but she much preferred this to the alternative. 

Peggy heard familiar footsteps walking closer, crunching the soft gravel underfoot. The ground was damp from recent storms that had passed through not too long ago; she’d seen the clouds on her descent from the plane. She glanced over at him but she was met instead with the sight of glimmering red, white, and blue.

“Still remember how to put this on?” Steve teased. He handed the shield off to her, which she took readily. Its solid weight was oddly reassuring. She didn’t wield it quite the way Steve did but its solid protection and familiar markings took her back to a time when everything was polished metal. 

Peggy held it out in front of her. “I can’t believe you still have these marks here,” she muttered in disbelief. Her fingers traced familiar markings in the upper left corner, markings made in barely constrained anger. “Surely Howard could take them out.”

“He’s offered,” Steve confessed. He climbed onto the modified machine. “I tell him to leave ‘em. I like ‘em there. It’s like…. a reminder.”

She watched as he slipped on his helmet. 

“A reminder of what?”

Peggy slipped the shield’s straps through a utility strap on her uniform. It settled firmly against her back, covering it entirely. 

“To not be stupid.”

Peggy swung her leg over the seat and settled in behind him. Her feet found the small spokes on the sides and rested upon them. Steve punched the engine, its loud noise filling their ears instantly. 

“You’re a man,” Peggy reminded needlessly, her tone edging on a tease with her usual sass cut in. “Isn’t stupidity part of the territory?”

“Ouch!” he laughed. Her lithe fingers dug into his side. The gesture was meant to assuage her words, to let him know about the smile on her face and the laughter in her heart. The men couldn’t see it, otherwise she wouldn’t have done it. They weren’t touching in any fashion except for her knees against his thighs. She didn’t particularly care anymore when around the Commandos but she could see some of the others still outside of the truck. Monty fired up the engine to warn them of their departure.

Steve tipped his head at Monty. “See you there.”

“Try to make yourselves useful while you’re waiting for us to catch up,” Monty suggested over the hum of the motors.

“Yeah,” Dugan agreed. “There’d better be a warm fire and a hot meal waiting.”

“Not likely unless you lot get your arses into gear,” Peggy smiled sweetly. “I miss your burnt spam, Timothy.”

Steve’s laugh and a wave of dust had Dugan chuckling to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I kind of just picked a location. There is absolutely no historical accuracy to it whatsoever.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little downtime with the Commandos.

Steve loved driving through the countryside, occasional streams of bullets aside. He had always dreamed of seeing places like this. When he’d been home sick from school, his mother would make sure he had loads of books surrounding his bedside. They were books about the world: places he could see vividly in his mind only because he knew he’d most likely never see them. 

There were times he didn’t think he’d make it out alive. He’d cough so hard that he was sure his lungs would come up with the phlegm or his small heart would burst from the effort. He knew his mom and Bucky certainly worried but books and dreams of a different day had always kept him going. 

He’d loved history books and biographies especially. Being in Europe now, it was exciting for him to stand where other men braver than him had stood before. To see how the land had changed from the passages he remembered reading. The most enjoyable part of his Captain America tour had been seeing cities he’d only read about. Every city was spectacular, teeming with people and bustling with activity in a different manner than he was used to in Brooklyn. 

The serum had amplified everything he’d never experienced. Every color was so vibrant. The sounds were familiar yet so different than the ones he was used to in the city. The smells were… assaulting to say the least. Some were pleasant, like freshly bloomed flowers in an empty field, but the smells of the city he could deal without.

He caught a whiff of Peggy’s perfume when she turned her head the other way against the back of his neck. He couldn’t help but smile. She’d laid her head on his back about thirty minutes ago. Her arms had found their way around his waist long before that, almost as soon as they’d lost sight of their companions. The others were far behind now, at least twenty minutes, so they had no need to be worried of the others seeing. 

They could both fall asleep at the drop of a hat and Peggy had taken advantage of the ability to nap on the way to their destination. He’d keep her steady should she sleep too soundly. 

He’d missed her in their time apart. Even though it had been short, they’d already lost far too much time being apart from one another. He found himself waiting to spend every second of the day with her. With the war over, he was allowed to dream of the life he wanted for them. He never thought he’d have any of this. He never imagined finding a woman who wanted to spend more than three seconds with him, much less the rest of her life. At least, he hoped she was planning on sticking around for the long haul. Not that he thought she was only testing the waters with him but Steve wasn’t a man who assumed. Assuming only led to trouble in his experience.

He wanted to ask her to marry him but he hadn’t found the right moment to do so. Or the right ring. He wanted to wait until his duty as Captain America was up but he was starting to think that might be longer than they were hoping. And then came the matter of finding the right ring. He was a frugal man but living in New York wasn’t exactly cheap. Howard had offered to loan him some money once but Steve had quickly shot him down politely. He wanted to be able to pay himself with his own earnings. 

His gloved hand found one of hers. They leather made them bulkier but he managed to slide his fingers over hers, gripping them firmly. Reflexively, she squeezed hers in assurance. It soothed him, grounded him to the here and now. 

He found himself starting awake when he slept at night, his body spinning out of control as if he had no clue what was real and what was a dream. It mostly happened when he slept alone. Though he produced enough body heat to warm a cup of coffee, the cold around him disturbed him when he slept – cold sheets, cold room, cold dreams. Nightmares of the ice, what he could remember of it, creeping in and wrapping around his limbs. It was suffocating at times. 

Peggy at his side drove the cold away. 

Her warm body kept his fears at bay. While her English nature kept her from being overly publicly affectionate, she always allowed him to wrap her arm through his or hold her hand to keep himself anchored to her whenever they went out. Sometimes the effects of the serum were still too much for him so he needed the anchoring to focus his mind. He hardly ever had nightmares with her at his side at night but every once in a while one would creep in. She toughed it out with him, her warm fingers caressing his skin to calm him down and remind him they hadn’t lost each other.

Steve had lost so much in his lifetime but she helped him remember he still had so much to be thankful for. 

“Mmmmm, how much further?” he heard in his ear. She also had an uncanny way of knowing when he was thinking about her.

He leaned his head back to look at her so she could hear him better. “About two miles maybe. There’s a little tower we saw yesterday where we can gather.”

“Wake me when we’re there,” she said loudly before plopping her head back down with a thud.

PCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSR

Steve and Peggy had time to kill before the rest caught up to their location. They were half a mile away from the factory. They’d wait for the others before checking out exactly what they were dealing with so they used the time as a study session.

Peggy had been teaching Steve coding when they had time, something they had started during the war. Steve was a quick study of it. He’d picked up the basics almost immediately; the only thing that occasional stunted progress was the languages he didn’t speak. Even then, messages followed a basic pattern and Steve had learned to recognize those patterns and words. 

When the rest caught up, they took the time to see what they were dealing with. Peggy pointed out that it was an abandoned chocolate factory. 

“Hey Cap, maybe they still got chocolate in there for ya,” Gabe teased his commander. Steve’s love of sweets was no secret. He’d traded his K-ration cigarettes for the chocolates.

There were two guards that patrolled the perimeter in opposite directions every twenty minutes. They wouldn’t be too hard to deal with among the ten of them. There were windows along the upper floors that were only meant to provide light so they couldn’t tell how many were inside. 

They headed to their night accommodations after discussing their base plan for the morning. Their journey took them back to Germany and the forests of Bavaria. 

There was a woman who was known to provide housing for friendly soldiers. To Peggy’s disbelief, the passing scenery looked familiar. It had been years but she was fairly positive…

“Oh my god,” she murmured when they pulled up at an old farm house. Steve glanced back at her over his shoulder, questions written on his face. Peggy wouldn’t have heard him, though. Her eyes were glued to the small, stocky older woman stepping out the front door.

She wore her dark brown hair up in a bun and always wore the same apron over her clothes while she was working. Small frame glasses sat perched on the edge of her nose, residing there because every time she pushed them up they fell right back down. 

The woman stopped dead at the sight of her. “Peggy?” the woman said in heavily accented German, a hand to her mouth in disbelief. 

A bright smile spread across Peggy’s face as she walked over to her. She embraced the woman tightly, “It’s so wonderful to see you again, Agatha.”

Steve sided up to the two woman with confusion clear on his face. After a final squeeze, Peggy explained. She’d first met Agatha in 1941 during her mission of rescuing Dr. Erskine. Their ride had lost communication with Peggy on their way out of the facility. Under heavy fire, Peggy had steered them to the south in search of adequate cover. They stumbled through the dense forest before coming across the farmhouse in the dead of night. Agatha had welcomed them right away and kept them safe until they could be extracted.

While her husband had died shortly before the war broke out, Agatha had her teenage son to help her run the farm. He was a tall, lanky young man with long limbs and dark brown hair like his mother that fell down to cover his eyes. He didn’t look like he could lift a two pound flour sack but when the men were helping bale hay as self-imposed payment for their stay, he surprised them all by pulling around the same amount as Dugan. 

Leopold, or Leo as his mother called him, had been in awe of the Commandos the minute he saw them staggering towards the farm a year and a half ago. He’d fired off a million questions immediately before being hushed by his mother. Agatha had welcomed them with warm arms, telling them enemies of Hitler would always be welcome on her farm. In exchange for a hot meal and a place to sleep, the Commandos had helped with some heavy labor Agatha had had to put off because of weather. She was a warm woman though tough as nails with a soft heart for soldiers. She spoke only German but her son spoke English so they mostly communicated through him. 

Agatha welcomed them back, never even flinching at the additional bodies of the gentlemen from the SSR. She readily welcomed them into her home, firing off rapid German the men couldn’t keep up with. Peggy surprised the men by firing off a stream of German in response while Leo translated for them. While Agatha looked pleased to have friendly soldiers to take care of once again, she informed them the only place she had for them all to sleep was the barn outside. The men had slept there before and Peggy assured her it wasn’t a bother for her or her colleagues. 

Steve and Monty helped dish out the hearty stew come supper time, shooing Agatha out of the small kitchen. Dugan took that time to pass on to her some items she’d spoken of to them before – a bottle of bourbon, some hard found chocolate from their travels, a comic for Leo of Captain America and his Howling Commandos, and cigarettes. She gladly accepted the cigarettes and book but she hesitated before taking the rest. Gabe and Jim told her they were leaving it with her one way or another, to think of it as a thank you for giving them someplace to stay. Leo translated to them that she was only doing what was right, protecting those who were protecting the world from the evil of Hitler, but the men insisted on their small token of gratitude. 

They enjoyed a dinner together, some sitting on the floor while others found a seat of their own on the few chairs Agatha had. Leo had taken up residence next to Dugan and Dernier, hounding them for new stories since they’d last seen each other. Agatha scolded Leo to give up his seat for Peggy despite Peggy’s repeated assurances that she was fine leaning against a bookcase, that her legs needed a good stretching after sitting for so long. 

Thompson, Yauch, and Ramirez sat near each other. They were feeling like outsiders among this lot, even with the obvious man crush Yauch and Ramirez had on Steve. Thompson hugged his bowl to him. He was eating like he’d never had a meal before, sitting there and wallowing in apparent self-pity. He tried to be a part of the conversations but there were so many occurring that it seemed impossible to follow along. 

After cleaning up, Agatha and Leo bid them goodnight and the Commandos guided their group outside to the barn about one hundred feet from the small cottage. 

“We might have stayed here more than once,” Steve grinned when Peggy saw their familiarity with their surroundings. 

Steve gathered some firewood with the help of Thompson, Ramirez, and Gabe. The men were still on a bit of a high after their personal mission and it was still relatively early for them to go to bed. It was something of a nightly ritual for them to sit around the fire for a few hours swapping the same stories they’d already heard hundreds of times. 

Peggy helped as Dugan, Yauch, and Monty found pieces of wood to serve as their seating for the evening. 

Dernier got to work making the fire while Jim rummaged through his bag for a little while before pulling out a deck of cards. He also slipped out a bottle of whiskey that was still mostly full.

In no time, they were laughing around the campfire like old times. 

There was a stream not too far from the barn so Peggy went with Monty when he refilled his canteen. She got along with all of the Commandos but she and Monty had a homeland in common and the same British reserve. Monty was by the book like her, for the most part at least, and more than once Peggy found herself being grateful he was part of the Commandos. He kept a cool head and made decisions based on logic and not impulse. That was the reason Steve had chosen him to be his second in command. He’d asked Bucky but he turned him down. She wasn’t sure of the exact reasons; neither had spoken about it in depth and she hadn’t asked out of respect, but she suspected Bucky didn’t quite trust himself after Zola. She couldn’t blame the man really. There was no telling exactly what Zola had put him through and Bucky wasn’t so keen to talk about it.

When they left, the others had been telling the SSR agents about some of the places they’d been during their time together but it was clear to Peggy they’d gotten a little sidetracked from their topic.

“…now she had the longest legs I’ve ever seen,” Dugan was saying, “with long blond hair pushed up into the craziest updo I’ve ever seen.” He did a sweeping motion around his head. Then he moved his hands out about a foot from his chest, “And the biggest kn...”

Gabe cleared his throat loudly and everyone turned to look at him. “There’s a lady present, Dum Dum.”

“Who, Carter?” Dugan chuckled in remembrance. “She’s shared her share of dirty jokes with us. She had me blushing!”

Peggy laughed dryly. “Don’t stop on my account. I’ve heard these stories a hundred times by now.”

She and Monty set their gear down next to a stump. There was an open seat next to Steve and one next to Jim. Monty appeared to make a beeline for the one next to Jim leaving the one next to Steve open for Peggy. She knew what the boys were doing but she didn’t much mind. It felt like she’d been away from him for months instead of a couple of weeks. She needed to be near to him, feel his heat, smell that familiar scent of soap and sweat.

Steve had his sketch book open in his lap with the pages titled as far away from prying eyes as possible while still giving himself enough light from the fire. He found sketching helped him think through strategies during rare down time but it also helped him relax from missions.

Peggy took her seat next to Steve. She waved off the cigar offer from Dugan. He raised a brow but said nothing. “I seem to have lost the taste for them,” she offered lowly in response. He didn’t bother to offer it to Steve before passing it to Monty. 

“Now, was this the uninhibited one or the unnaturally flexible one?” Peggy asked cheekily. 

“Both actually.” His laugh was deep and robust, unmistakably him. 

Steve poured some more whiskey in his tin cup before handing it to her. She looked at the agents on the opposite side of the fire. “You should pay attention to the end. It has a twist ending.” Her eyebrows knitted together as she took a swig from her cup. “Pun unintended.”

Steve and the others chuckled around her, knowing damn well how the story ended. 

“Besides, I listen so that I can warn unsuspecting women to look out for your ludicrous lines. Why they even speak to you I’ll never know.”

“Me neither but it’s an unsuspecting perk of the job I intend to enjoy.”

“He doesn’t even have the worse ones!” Jim exclaimed, sloshing whiskey over his arm. He barely paid it any mind, just slapped another card down next to him and Dernier. 

“Who has the best one?” Ramirez asked the group eagerly.

“Why? You thinkin’ of usin’ it?”

“It’d probably be an improvement from what he does now,” Thompson smirked from his spot. He’d been oddly quiet since arriving at the farm. He wasn’t his usual arrogant self which was a relief for Peggy. She hadn’t wanted to feel her usual impulse to sock him in the jaw every ten seconds and Peggy knew her boys. They’d step in to defend her when they knew damn well she didn’t need defending.

“Bucky had the best ones.”

Six somber heads turned towards Steve. He stared into the fire, a faint smirk on his lips, his pencil falling limp in his hand. Talking about Bucky was hard for him sometimes. No one brought him up for fear that it would sadden their captain. They waited for Steve to mention him, usually in the form of a funny story or something clever he did on a mission, before tagging on with stories of their own. He often spoke freely of Bucky at home to Peggy but in New York he was reminded of his friend at every turn. With every story, the hurt felt a little less and the memory grew fonder. 

Softly Steve continued. “They were so bad but I’ll be damned if women didn’t fall for it. When he first enlisted, he used to tell girls that he was shipping out the next day and he didn’t know when he’d be back. That part was true at least.” He chuckled, a real smile growing on his face as he remembered. “They’d get sucked in a little at that point because Bucky went for the naïve ones. Then he’d go, “I don’t know if I’ll… No, I can’t say it. It’s too embarrassing.” The girl would have to ask what because Bucky was a damn good actor when it came to women. He tried passing his tricks onto me but I never felt right doing that. Plus they didn’t want to talk to me past hello. 

“Anyway, she would ask him, “What?” and he would get all shy, which is not a word I would ever use to describe Bucky, and he’d scuff his shoes against the ground before saying, “I don’t know if I’ll ever get to be with a woman.””

A roar of laughter shot up from everyone. 

“I musta heard him use that line at least a dozen times before he left the first time. Every single one would take pity on ‘im and sleep with him to make sure he had a nice memory of home.”

Peggy shook her head with a smile on her face. “That sounds like James.”

PCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSR

Peggy settled on the ground to rest her back against the stump. She was feeling a little tired but between the warmth of the whiskey, the fire, and the laugher she was too comfortable to move. 

She was sitting close enough to Steve by now that their shoulders were touching. Steve had plopped himself down off the log long before her, giving her a pretty good view of what he’d been drawing for the last hour. She had seen what she was sure were parts of the New York Bell Company Building covering the left half of the page. His hand had blocked most of the rest of the page but she saw a gun peeking out above his knuckle. Her curiosity piqued, she had leaned closer and pulled his hand back slightly to reveal a bent arm and some kind of object blocking the torso. After muttering that it wasn’t really finished yet, Steve let her move his hand aside so she could lay eyes on the likeness of herself. 

She was used to him drawing her, had seen page after page filled with various renditions of her and parts of her, but this was a new one. Drawing Peggy was impeccably dressed if real Peggy did say so herself. She held her gun of choice in her right hand and Steve’s shield in her left.

She’d glanced up at him as if to ask if this was what she was really seeing but he only shrugged innocently. 

“I was inspired,” he’d said.

She’d leaned into him a little harder to him to really take in the image. She loved the way he drew her. Not that she had anyone else drawing pictures of her on a regular basis to compare it to. He managed to make everything look so clean and yet he could put an incredible amount of detail into an image. She had a wavy dress on that came down to her knees, one that looked similar to the one she’d worn for their first date. Instead of being pulled back, he’d drawn her hair loose around her shoulders. She could even see he’d drawn the chain of his dog tags she frequently wore around her neck. She held his shield in front of her body loosely. Proudly. She held her chin high and her eyes seemed to be hiding a playful secret. 

“What do you think?” he’d murmured lowly. 

She’d found his eyes again. She’d missed his beautiful eyes. She knew he was genuinely trying to see how she felt about it. He was never insecure about his drawings but he did get nervous when the subject got to see their image.

“I think,” she’d said slowly, her foot tilting over to tap against his, “that you might have some competition for your job.”

He’d laughed loudly, making her acutely aware of the others turning their eyes to them. She’d refused to acknowledge them in that moment.

“Trust me,” he’d assured unnecessarily, “you don’t want my job.”

She hadn’t bothered to move away from him and he hadn’t either. They sat comfortably together, him drawing and her going between watching him and talking with the others. 

Now Steve watched through the flames as Dernier dealt another hand of poker to Thompson, Jim, Dugan, and Monty. Thompson had finally stopped sulking and tried to be a part of the group. It wasn’t that his men were ignoring him so much as they were enjoying each other’s company on one last battle before going home. It wasn’t a guarantee that home was where they would stay for long but the word was a thought they all relished. Steve for one was looking forward to getting back to the normal life he was trying to start with Peggy.

He reveled in her presence next to him by the warmth of the fire. For the first time in days, he felt content enough to close his eyes and take a deep breath. His mind and body felt calm despite another fight looming in the distance. 

He looked at those around him. Peggy was sipping the whiskey they were sharing. Yauch and Ramirez were laughing at the poker game; Monty telling Gabe to stop helping Dernier cheat while Thompson and Jim were laughing at something Dugan was telling them. 

He was going to miss spending time with his friends. He’d had few back in Brooklyn before the war but now he had even less. He’d spent most of his time indoors but when he was well enough he’d get to play outside with Bucky. They would play with the other neighborhood kids occasionally but often times it was just them against the world. 

Now, everyone was attracted to Captain America but very few wanted to get to know Steve Rogers.

Except for this bunch.

The Commandos had become the brothers Steve never had.

“Carter, how come you’re not playing?” Thompson called over in their direction. He adjusted the cards in his hand, glancing between them and the couple on the ground.

Steve glanced at his sketch briefly to keep from looking over beside him. 

“She’s not allowed to play,” Dugan answered for her. “She cheats.”

“Which is Dugan’s polite way of saying that he still owes her roughly a case of bourbon and he doesn’t want to add to his tab,” Monty interjected on Peggy’s behalf. Laughter spread among the group.

“Group rules: Timothy and I aren’t allowed to play cards together because someone always ends up in tears.”

Gabe put a hand on one side of his mouth to stage whisper to the group, “And it ain’t Peggy.”

More laughter rang up from the bunch. Seemingly satisfied, the card players went back to their game. Steve focused on his drawing again but not without a final glance at Thompson.

Peggy had told him tale upon tale about the man. Of all the men she now worked with at the SSR headquarters in New York, Thompson was the one giving her the most trouble and grief. He’d seen Peggy encounter sexism only briefly during the war, though he had no doubt she experienced it on a frequent basis when he wasn’t near to witness it. She had already been high in rank by the time Steve arrived but newcomers still doubted her capabilities. While Phillips had been angry with her during the beginning of Steve’s transformation, and angry with Steve himself, he never treated Peggy as less than an equal. Likewise with the rest of the colleagues they shared and liked. Steve had just known that things would be the same for her in New York.

But he had to admit that he could be naïve sometimes.

He’d never met her superior, or any of her other colleagues yet except for the three here now, but it sounded as if they were all like Thompson. Except for an agent Peggy said had a crush on her. He seemed to be her only friend at work. Steve hadn’t admitted this to Peggy, barely wanted to admit it to himself, but he’d gotten a little jealous when he heard her say that. Not that she had a friend but that this man had a crush on her. 

He knew it wasn’t an unfathomable thought. Peggy was an extremely attractive woman. It was only logical that men would fawn over her. 

Looking at Thompson now, Steve believed this was the man’s main problem with Peggy. He hadn’t said too much in Steve’s presence so far so he still wasn’t quite so sure but it wasn’t often his instincts were wrong.

Thompson had a crush on her. 

Which was not at all unlike the obvious man crush Ramirez had on Steve himself.

The man in thought plopped himself down on Steve’s left. Steve grinned at the man, pulling his sketch book closer to his body so the man couldn’t see.

Ramirez had a boyish grin on his face, a star struck look Steve had seen before while he was touring with the USO.

“I just wanted to say, sir, that it is seriously an honor to meet you.” This was the third time Ramirez had expressed this to Steve but he was too polite to say anything. Yet at least. Steve could hear Peggy snickering quietly to herself. “I read all the comics they made of you guys. Well, I mean, I was buyin’ ‘em for my kid brother anyway. He was on the front lines; I was back home in an office. I had a bad knee at the time but I could still work intelligence. He loved all of ‘em. Said it gave him the courage to keep fighting.”

“Oh, well thank you,” Steve flustered about. “Is your brother… did he…”

“Oh, yeah. He’s fine,” Ramirez read into Steve’s question. “Came back skinnier than usual but with mom’s cooking, he gained at least thirty pounds his first week back.”

Steve got chuckle out of that. “Well, I’m glad he enjoyed them. I have to admit I haven’t actually read them myself but I signed quite a few copies when I was with the USO.”

“Man, I saw a couple of your shows,” Ramirez fawned, “You were great. And that song stayed stuck in my head for days.”

Steve narrowly avoided rolling his eyes. “How do you think I felt? I think that was the only music I heard for six months. I still hear it when I try and sleep at night.”

Ramirez laughed, more than a person should have in Steve’s opinion. Peggy was hiding her obvious amusement behind the tin cup.

“Yeah but I bet it was great getting to be around all those girls, huh, Steve?” Thompson gleefully chimed in from across the way. Steve glanced over at the man. It was obvious what he wanted to hear from Steve, what he was trying to accomplish with him. But Steve wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of being buddies when the man had yet to deserve his respect. Peggy was polite in her complaints but he had seen her frustration more times than he cared to. Peggy’s word was more than enough for him.

“It was kinda crowded truthfully. And I never knew how much women could fight with one another over hair products, make up, men. They were great girls but I was glad to get away from that job.”

“I’ll bet they were sad to see you go,” Peggy mock whispered towards him, her amusement flashing in her grin. “Mr. Star Spangled Man with a Plan.”

“Who’s strong and brave, here to save the American Way?” Dugan sang loudly, cup raised in the air. Steve blinked at the tune, his surprise clear. He looked over at Peggy, a small glare on his face but her smile told him she would hear none of it. 

“Who vows to fight like a man for what’s right night and day?” Jim joined in, his voice slightly monotone but his joy at embarrassing his commander evident on his face. 

“Who will campaign door-to-door for America,” Gabe continued, hand over his heart as if reciting the pledge of allegiance. “Carry the flag shore to shore for America?”

“From Hoboken to Spokane,” Monty and Dernier crooned together. Steve would have thought they rehearsed this whenever he left the room. Gabe leaned into Jim and together they crowded around with the rest of the singers. 

“The Star Spangled Man with a Plan!”

Peggy clapped gleefully as Steve hung his head in amusement. “I’m going to hurt you all later,” he vowed.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve didn’t bat an eyelash as he rounded the barn and moved away from the eyes of Monty. He ignored the knowing smile on the man’s face and refused to blush at his correct assumptions. 

The night was dark now that the embers from the fire had been tamped out. A crescent moon was playing hide and seek amongst the clouds, winning the game more often than not. No lights came from the house where Agatha and Leo were sleeping and the men in the barn had long since succumbed to the allure of sleep brought about by their liquor. 

An added benefit from the serum was perfect vision. He had long since grown accustomed to the dark surroundings he often found himself in. Often times, he didn’t require a flashlight or night vision goggles to find his way around. He relied on all five senses to find what he was after – anything from a stray Hydra agent or the person of his desire.

A hand in the middle of his back startled him. “It’s about time you got here.”

He turned to see Peggy, her smiling face beaming at him in the darkness. Her arms wrapped around his neck, aligning their bodies in a way he didn’t realize how badly he’d missed. His arms fit snugly around her. Foreheads pressed together, they reveled in each others presence for a moment in the silence with only their synchronized breathing for sound.

Steve’s lips found hers with no hesitation, colliding with a surprising force for the serene moment. He didn’t like being apart from her - her in New York and him gallivanting around Europe still fighting the bad guys. He wanted her by his side fighting the fight right alongside him. That’s the way it was supposed to be. Neither of them was completely happy with their current respective jobs but they were making do. They were dealing with their duties as long as they had the other to talk to at the end of the night. 

But being able to work together again felt something out of a fairytale to Steve. 

Her mouth opened under his, letting him in deeper. He could taste the whiskey on her tongue from earlier in the evening but something else that was distinctly Peggy Carter. He could feel her fingers twining through his hair, tugging at the dirty strands insistently. That was one of the many signals of hers he was slowly learning. Her signals could have different meanings but whichever option he chose, he was never wrong.

His strong arms hoisted her up to get closer and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Though their mouths were jostled a little, they never lost contact. Steve walked forward until Peggy’s back came in contact with the tree she had been hiding behind just moments before. 

Pulling away reluctantly, Peggy ran her fingers adoringly over the stubble on his cheeks. Her eyes bore into his in the dark night, the deep chocolate hues seeming brighter than the stars. 

“I missed you, my darling,” she whispered against his lips.

“I missed hearing you say that,” he admitted. “I missed your voice and kissing you and listening to you tell me I’m being ridiculous all the time.”

She pressed her forehead to his again. “And you missed opening day, I’m afraid.”

“Ugh, I know,” he groaned ruefully, closing his eyes as if it physically pained him. “Don’t remind me. First opening day in years and I actually had a date.”

Peggy chuckled gently. Steve had been looking forward to taking her to her first baseball game of his beloved team. His excitement for the big day was so infectious that Peggy could feel herself turning into a fan without ever having set foot in the stadium. But she would never tell Steve that. Not until many years down the line.

“There’ll be other games, darling,” she reminded, kissing his forehead and running her fingers through the loose strands of hair dangling around the area. “I promise. Tired of your male companions already?” 

“Well, it’s not that I don’t love the guys but waking up to realize you’re spooning Dugan does make you rethink your line of work.”

The laugh she belted out had to be stifled quickly lest the others hear her and come looking for the source. 

“You didn’t!”

He nodded shamefully though she knew he was only joking. She’d seen him and his team when they were in the field. 

“I would have paid good money to see that.”

“I’d pay good money to go back in time so I was hugging my pack instead. Dugan is not a soft man.”

She chuckled at the image of the two large men snuggled up to one another. “You silly man.” With a light touch, she trailed a finger down the edge of his cheek to bring his lips back to hers. She kept her tone seductive and low. Her nose grazed against his and her breath wisped across his cheeks. “Will you settle for me in your arms tonight? I know I can’t offer you what Dugan can but I think you’ll like it just the same.” 

Steve watched as her teeth caught her bottom lip to control her smile. 

“Listen here, Miss Carter,” he mock threatened. He saw her eyes flare with annoyance.

“Agent,” she immediately inserted loudly. He continued speaking as if he hadn’t heard her.

“You knew about the torch Dugan and I carried for one another going into this so you’re just gonna have to accept that.” He pulled her torso closer, leaving her to drape herself over him. He followed her lead and teased her with a taste of his lips. It was backfiring on him, though. She turned him into a puddle every time. She rubbed slow circles on his shoulders in a soothing manner. “But you’re the only one I ever want in my arms.”

“That’s good because I’ll sock Dugan in the danglers before he can steal you away.”

Steve’s guffaw caused her heart to smile and her extremities to warm in the cold night air. She’d lost track of her gloves hours ago when they’d sat down for supper. Peggy instead focused on the feel of his fingers playing along the fabric high on her thighs over her uniform to warm her. She pictured them back at his apartment in Brooklyn on a lazy Sunday morning with nothing to do but bask in each other. There was scarce need for them to even dress but Steve often went out early to buy a paper before curling up in bed with her to read it. Sometimes she would doze but mostly she would listen to him read stories he found interesting. If she was feeling particularly generous, she’d let him read sports statistics to her. Of course, she always expected something in return for what she considered to be an incredibly generous favor. She was looking forward to them returning to what had already become a pleasant routine. 

“So that’s Thompson, huh?”

Peggy groaned into his neck, nuzzling into the soft flesh left exposed from his uniform. 

“Is he always such a dick?” 

She leaned back, her back flush with the tree trunk, to meet his eyes. “I feel that might be too nice a term for him.”

“I’d offer to rough him up a little but you’d probably do it better than me.”

“Mmm, I think he might be a little awe struck at the sight of the genuine Captain America, actually. Normally he’s quite chatty. I think he’s barely said more than a hundred words since we left New York. And of course, most of that was him barking orders as usual.”

Steve nodded. He’d met a million men like Thompson in his life. Cocky and confident, they believed they contained the answers to the universe. They used force to get their way and never gave a damn about how they made it to the top. If they saw a weak spot, they pounced on it and used it to their advantage until the end of time. They preferred the company of others near identical to themselves or people they could control without the other realizing what was happening in the status quo. They had no time for people they considered beneath them or who were, in this case, a member of the opposite sex. 

“Sometimes I just want to give him the Hodge treatment,” Steve smiled at her use of his term, “because it is unbelievably difficult to always take the high road.”

He rubbed her thigh soothingly. “I bet you do it well, though.” She rolled her eyes at him affectionately. “Are you sure you don’t want me to rough him up a little? I could make it look like an accident. Maybe get some of the guys to help.”

“No, my darling.” Her voice was soft and sleepy. She traced a finger over his full lips. “As much as I’d like to say yes to that sometimes, I have to remind myself that Agent Thompson is ultimately not the enemy. I doubt he’ll ever see me as an equal but I’ll be damned if I let him get the best of me.”

Steve leaned in close to her until his forehead was pressed against hers again. Pressing a chaste kiss to her lips, he reminded, “No one could ever get the best of Peggy Carter.”

He felt rather than saw her lazy smile. He gave in to her questing lips without a second thought; he needed the comfort as much as her. His mouth opened easily under hers, his tongue giving her the answers her own was seeking. He couldn’t stop his hands from finding their way to her head, cradling her tenderly to him. His fingers weaved their way through the confines of her hair tie, loosening the strands thrown up in haste before her jump out of the airplane. 

Peggy pulled away first with some reluctance. She brushed the hair back that always fell onto his forehead. In the darkness, his face was drawn with shadows of fatigue. “You look tired, Steve.”

“Nah, I’m not tired.” He brushed off the concern as was his nature. He didn’t like having people fuss over him. He always figured there were better things for people to worry about. He played off his exhaustion as if that would make her forget what she saw in him. “I can’t get tired. I’m Captain America, remember?”

She smiled tiredly at his attempt at being jovial. His stubble tickled her hands as she cradled his face. “No, you’re Steve Rogers.” Her smile grew when he titled his head to press a kiss to the corner of her palm. “Steve Rogers needs sleep. Peggy’s orders.”

“Just like old times.”

Slowly, Peggy’s feet found the earth once more. Grabbing the snaps on the front of his uniform, she pulled him down for one last kiss before they headed back towards the barn. Starting side by side, Steve was confused when Peggy disappeared for a moment. Her side step made sense when he felt her hands dig insistently into the back of his shoulders. He stooped down a peg to give her better leverage to jump on his back. He chuckled when she squealed in his ear as he jostled her higher onto his back. Her arms snuggly around his neck, he set the course for their camp.

The occasional hoot from a nearby owl was the only noise to penetrate the dark of night. Steve’s boots crunched over dead leaves and the occasional patch of gravel, his steps just as light as if Peggy weren’t on his back. Steve was a surprisingly light walker. He moved with the stealth of a large cat, a trait that benefited him well when sneaking up on enemies. 

Falsworth didn’t seemed surprised to see them return the way they did. After glancing over to the pair and shaking his head, albeit with a smile on his face, he turned his attention to the east section of the barn and started his short hourly patrol. 

Peggy slid off Steve’s back; she didn’t think anyone would still be awake inside the dark barn but there was no point risking one of her colleagues witnessing her and Steve together. 

They slipped inside to the soft snores of men and animals. Cows and sheep slept side by side in the moderate sized barn. There wasn’t enough space for all of the men and animals to sleep on the same level of the barn so it had been first dibs on the ground floor. Those who weren’t lucky enough to claim a spot early were relegated to the small loft where Agatha currently had a dozen hay bales stored. 

The two lovers climbed the ladder to the loft. Dugan’s soft snores rumbled over to them as they settled into their makeshift mattress of hay while their packs acted as pillows. Steve settled in first while Peggy removed her boots. She tossed them carelessly to the side before settling into Steve’s warm embrace. She nuzzled her nose into the hollow of his throat, tangling her legs in his. His heavy limb draped over her hip insuring she was secure against him. Peggy’s arm fumbled around next to them for a moment before she found his jacket to drape over them.

“Too heavy?” he mumbled in her ear, settling his arms around her torso. His eyes had already drooped shut. 

Peggy minutely shook her head, serenity taking over her body and causing her actions to lag. Murmuring low, nearly asleep herself, she assured him, “No, you’re perfect.”

PCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSRPCSR

Three hard taps on the bottom of his boot woke Steve from a peaceful sleep. Groaning low, he attempted to ignore the source of the tap by curling tighter into Peggy and pulling the jacket higher around their necks. He buried his face in her hair and tried to find sleep.

The taps continued. “Up and at ‘em, Cap.” Turning his head slowly, Steve caught sight of Dugan’s outline in the dark. The bulky man had crouched down beside the couple now that his target was no longer ignoring him. “Thought you might wanna make a move soon.”

Catching Dugan’s underlying meaning, Steve slowly nodded as if he were just learning his words. Sleep was still heavy in his head. He’d never been a particularly heavy sleeper; going in and out of hospitals your entire childhood would do that to a person. He’d discovered, however, that he became more difficult to rouse in the presence of Peggy. 

He sat up slowly so he wouldn’t disturb Peggy. He’d let her sleep a little while longer before waking her for their mission if she hadn’t already woken by the time the rest of the men were up. They were a loud and crass bunch when they were torn from sleep but they always snapped to action like they’d never left the battlefield. 

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Dugan soothed his friend. “It’s one thing for us to see it. We don’t care. She’s like our sister. We protect her like we protect each other. If you think I’m gonna let those boys down there find out and use this against her, then you must think I’m dumber than my nickname.”

Steve chuckled low. His guys put up tough exteriors, but they were all softies at heart.

He rose hesitantly and clapped Dugan on the shoulder.

“Thanks for protecting us..”

“Eh, don’t mention it. I can’t have the fellas knowing I’m a hopeless romantic at heart.” Dugan waved a hand around as if that would make the notion disappear from the other man’s brain. “You two were made for each other and I’ll be damned if someone tries to use your relationship as ammo against either one of you.”

The two men left it at that. The silent promise hung in the air, though. 

One by one, the group began to rise from their slumber. They were quiet as they went about their business, barely speaking except for the occasional grunt of acknowledgement. Steve didn’t have to wake Peggy after all. A whoosh of air brushed the left side of his body as his pack was thrown from the loft followed shortly by her own. He watched her climb down the ladder, his jacket around her shoulders. He wasn’t dreadfully concerned about getting it back just yet. It was chilly this morning and his uniform usually kept him more than warm enough.

Agatha was waiting in her door when they emerged from the barn. Passing Brötchen into each of their hands, she wished them good luck on their journey.


	5. Chapter 5

They drove in silence. The normally chatty Commandos were atypically quiet before missions. Steve couldn’t remember if it had always been that way for them or if it was a product of the things their eyes had seen. 

They left their trucks a few miles out from the factory, hidden in the trees and shrubs. They walked quietly through the silent forest. Steve noticed a few faint foot trails under his feet but they didn’t look like they’d been used recently. The employees of the factory had probably used them to go between work and the village that was located down the sloping hill to the south. 

Steve raised a hand to halt the company when they came upon a group of trees clustered together. As he raised the binoculars to his eyes, he didn’t miss Thompson at his elbow doing the same. He watched for a moment, noticing the same two guards as the day before. Shouldn’t be too hard to control their entrance without having them sound the alarm.

“All right, here’s the plan,” Thompson piped up. Steve and the others turned to look at the man. “We’ll wait until they round the building before making our way down there. After that, we’ll split into teams of two to cover as much ground as possible to look for Vaselli.”

Steve fought hard to keep his mouth shut. He glanced over at Peggy who was glaring back at him with the same look he knew was plastered on his face. A light coughing noise drew his attention back to the center of the group. His men were staring between him and Peggy. Thompson noticed.

“What?” His tone was impetuous, no doubt not enjoying the fact that no one seemed on board with his plan. He nodded to Steve and Peggy. “You two got a better plan?”

Steve tilted his head towards Peggy but said nothing. 

“While we could cover more ground with more teams, it leads to more room for error.” Peggy had never needed to be told twice to voice her opinion. “Two teams of five is safer.”

“And the guards don’t make full passes on the sides of the building,” Steve tacked on. “They’d see us before we ever made it to the door.”

“Which we wouldn’t even be able to get into without causing a commotion outside,” Peggy finished. 

“Unless you packed some ten foot stilts,” Dugan murmured from the side. Steve saw Gabe elbow the man in the side. 

Thompson looked around skeptically. Steve didn’t give a damn if he hurt the man’s feelings or wounded his pride. He wasn’t leading his people towards the building on someone’s half thought plan. 

Finally, Thompson turned back to Steve. Reluctantly he noticed. “What do you suggest then?”

“Like Agent Carter suggested, two teams of five. I’m not taking any chances when I have no clue what’s on the other side of that building. One team will stay here, take care of the guards, while the other will hug the tree line until they come up on the back side of the building. From there, they can find our exit point if we need one in a hurry and the front door is blocked. Sound good to you?”

“And how are we going to take out two guys without them seeing us?” Thompson argued. He gestured wildly in front of him. “That’s gotta be a mile, easy! Can you throw your shield that far, Captain?”

Steve grit his teeth at the sarcastic words of Thompson. Wordlessly, he glanced over at Dugan. Dugan took the rifle off his shoulder and handed it to Peggy. Peggy in turn handed Steve the semi-automatic she’d been carrying. She found a fallen log a few feet away and dropped down to settle into position. Thompson graced them all with a scoff but managed to keep his mouth shut.

“Monty, Dugan, Morita, Yauch, Ramirez – you’re in charge of our emergency exit. After you find it, radio and we’ll meet near the front after Peggy takes out the guards.”

“You got it, Cap,” Morita agreed for the lot of them. They took off immediately, Yauch and Ramirez never hesitating under Steve’s command. At least those two had a brain; Thompson was still busy glaring at Steve. He wanted to keep Thompson close, though. He didn’t trust the man.

They waited in relative silence. Steve moved over to stand near Peggy so he could keep sights on the guards with her. He could hear a low string of French behind him from Jones and Dernier but he’d long since stopped trying to figure out what they talked about during their waiting. 

“Tell Dugan they’d better be in position soon,” Peggy commented lowly from her position in the snow. “I’ll have the perfect shot in about five minutes and I’ll be very cross with him if I have to freeze my arse off in the snow any longer than that.”

He chuckled softly and brought the radio up to his mouth so he could repeat her orders. 

“You sure you can hit your mark, Carter?” Thompson wondered snidely from the sidelines. Steve opened his mouth to tear him a new one but Peggy beat him to it.

“Believe it or not, Agent Thompson, I did more during the war than simply fetch lunch orders and coffee.”

“Fire away, Carter,” crackled Morita’s voice through the radio. 

Steve turned his attention back to the guards. In his peripherals, he saw Thompson raise his binoculars again. Steve could hear Peggy’s breathing even out as she steadied her rifle before a single crack filled the air. Together the two men fell to the ground in a heap, one hole through the center of both their foreheads. 

“They’ll have heard that.” 

Peggy snapped up from her position and tossed the rifle to Gabe. Steve tossed her weapon back to her as they took off in a run for the entrance. 

It amazed Peggy how quickly her muscle memory took over. It was as though she were back in the midst of the war, fighting alongside men who respected her. Being useful once again. 

She and Steve fell right back into their wordless communication. Gestures and glances conveyed their thoughts that led them all safely into the building. 

Peggy had been expecting to encounter hordes of hidden soldiers trying to escape the fallout of the war. Instead they found empty halls and their own echoing footsteps. 

“Dugan’s probably caught their attention with the racket he makes,” Peggy quietly observed. Agreeing chuckles sang out behind her as pleas of whispered helps cried out in front of her. Maria Vaselli’s pleading face stared back them from inside a makeshift cell.

“We’re with the SSR,” Peggy said by way of greeting. The look on Maria’s face was one of relief.

“Thank god you received my message. I wasn’t sure anyone would figure out the code.”

Maria explained how she came to be captured by the German soldiers while Steve and Dernier worked on removing the hinges from the surprisingly flimsy door. Thompson and Jones kept look out over the empty halls. 

Maria had been traveling with another scientist, one who hadn’t been as lucky as her, when soldiers ambushed them. They’d hoped with the war being over they were safe at last but it seemed instead that the formulas Maria knew were far more valuable than gold. She had been taken to her present surroundings and held in a small room in between bouts of weak attempts of torture to try and get her to give them her half of the super solider serum formula.

“Though how far they were expecting to get with one piece of many, I have no idea.”

A loud clanging signaled the removal of the door. Thompson whistled sharply and motioned down the corridor. 

“Looks like it’s time to find our exit,” Steve quipped with a smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It felt as though she were in a dream. Bullets whizzing past her face at targets behind her. A metallic pinging sound as bullets made contact with pipes instead of the intended flesh of her friends. Time seemed to slow as the world spun around her. 

Later she wouldn’t recall how they had fought off the twenty men that seemed to come from nowhere. She wouldn’t remember the window that seemed to explode next to her and the plethora of cuts she received on her hands as she shielded her eyes from the damage. She wouldn’t remember how she failed to notice the man coming up behind Steve and sunk a blade deep into his side before Steve had incapacitated him with his shield. She wouldn’t remember Dugan breaking a wall down and Morita and Yauch laying down cover fire for their escape. She wouldn’t remember practically picking Thompson up to force him to safety. She wouldn’t remember getting everyone out before she and Steve followed behind, both of them stubbornly staying behind and ignoring the other’s yells of leaving. She wouldn’t remember throwing Steve’s arm over her shoulder as she took on some of his bulking weight as they hurriedly hobbled to the waiting truck. She wouldn’t remember just barely getting her feet in the truck before it sped off in the melting snow.

She would, however, remember feeling relieved all of her people had come out alive and their target had been rescued. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peggy sat Steve down on the bench in the middle of the aisle. He groaned as he maneuvered his body into an acceptable position for the wound. Peggy set the borrowed medical kit on the floor next to them, already rummaging through the contents to find what she needed first. 

They’d found refuge in the abandoned airstrip that would serve as their rendezvous the following morning. While they weren’t able to fully relax within its walls, American troops still occupied the cities closest to them. They could rest easy knowing friends were in the area.

“Take off the vest,” she ordered, her tone all business for the moment. “I’ll help with the rest. I don’t want you to jostle the wound more than you already have.”

When he didn’t make a cheeky comment in response, she knew he was in more pain than he wanted to let on. She unhooked the buckle high on his back while his hand went to the Velcro at his neck. His left hand worked at the snaps under his right bicep; he waited patiently when she did the same to the left side. Together, although Peggy was doing most of the work, they lifted the vest off his chest. Steve unhooked the belt and let it fall unceremoniously to the floor. Her hands pulled the zipper at his neck down and together they got his arms out of their sleeves and rolled the suit down until it rested at his waist. 

Peggy guided him to lay down. He pulled one leg onto the wide bench so his side wasn’t stretched out so much. He ran his hands through his hair, disheveling his dirty blonde locks. 

“That knife must have dug deeper than I thought,” Peggy’s soft voice cut through his fog of pain. Steve opened his eyes, unaware he’d closed them in the first place, and looked over at her. She was kneeling on the floor next to him. He could hear medical instruments clanging together but couldn’t see what she was doing. “Or are you just putting on your manly, macho exterior for my sake?”

He chuckled and then immediately regretted his actions. He grimaced and groaned, breaking a façade he hadn’t realized he was putting on until she mentioned it. Peggy moved his right hand to rest on his bare chest so she could get to his side. He wrapped his other hand around the back of his head, fingers curling into his hair to take his focus off the pain. “Peg, I think you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I’m always right.” Her cocky, skewed grin made him laugh. “What am I right about now?”

“I’m exhausted.”

She had been rummaging through the bag trying to round up more than two pieces of gauze but she found his eyes at his words. She could see tired lines around his eyes where the skin was darker from lack of sleep. People assumed because he could do feats that were superhuman that he himself wasn’t merely man but instead a god. It was up to Peggy to remind him not to do more than he was actually capable of doing.

She leaned in closer so her body pressed against his, taking care to make sure she wasn’t touching his wound. Her fingers laced with his on top of his chest. “If anyone tries to send you on any errands for at least a month, you tell them they have to talk to me first.”

“Oh yeah?” he grinned, his Brooklyn drawl coming out. He squeezed her fingers. “And what are you gonna tell ‘em?”

Peggy snapped back and pretended to be in thought. She only thought about this particular topic at least three times a day anytime he was overseas these days.

“Hmm, well first I would tell them where to shove it.” Taking her hand back she finished gathering her supplies. Grabbing a flashlight, she shone the light at his wound. “Then I would say… Captain America is done being your dancing monkey.”

Steve’s belly laugh was enough to warm her soul. Any doubts she had about his condition, mild though it may be given his circumstances, disappeared into the air.

She dug out a piece of fabric hanging on the edge of the gash. Steve sucked in a breath before saying, “As much as I would appreciate that, I don’t think they’ll see it your way.”

“No, probably not but I love imagining their faces when I tell them to shove it.” Steve gasped when the antiseptic washed over his wound. “Oh hush, you big baby.”

Peggy threaded her needle in quick fashion, the action muscle memory by now. Steve’s eyes stared straight up at the ceiling, waiting in nervous anticipation for the needle’s prick. 

He despised needles and everything remotely associated with a hospital. She could see the nervous tick at the corner of his eye. 

“Howard came to see me just after you left.” 

Talking was always a surefire way to take his mind off needles. 

“Oh yeah? Do I need to punch him again?”

Peggy stifled a smirk at the old incident but just barely. 

“No, we met at the Automat, actually. He caught me on lunch.” She began stitching him up, her movements fluid and precise. 

“Fuck!” Steve groaned out at the contact. 

Peggy rolled her eyes at his dramatics. It was hardly the first time she’d stitched a wound of his. She was his preferred nursemaid. She had a gentle touch that Morita lacked but she also knew how to force him still when he needed patching up. 

“My, who would have thought Captain America has such a foul mouth?”

She noticed his strained smirk but he said nothing. His breathing was starting to even out, his eyes shut as he calmed himself. “What’d he want?”

“I couldn’t really tell, honestly. He was talking too fast and he wasn’t making any sense. He looked like he’d been up all night. I think he was listing acronyms but he was bouncing back and forth so much I couldn’t keep track. And as soon as he said something about Colonel Phillips working for him, I knew he’d officially gone daft. But the oddest thing – Miss Fry told me I’d had a call from the Colonel but he hadn’t left a message; just a phone number. I had to leave before I had a chance to return it.”

“Maybe Howard called him and it didn’t make sense to Phillips either.”

“Mmm, it’s quite possible. I suppose we’ll find out when we return home.”

Peggy worked in silence after that. Now that she could see it up close, the wound wasn’t as bad as it had seemed. It was a deep gash but with Steve’s capabilities it would heal in no time. The stitches would help it heal evenly. He would simply move a little slower until then. Secretly, it relieved Peggy. Perhaps now he’d be home a little bit longer. 

Her gaze turned over his face. His eyes were shut but his face was relaxed. He cupped the back of his head with a hand, his long fingers threaded through his sweaty locks. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his bicep. His eyes opened slowly and found hers.

“I can’t seem to keep you out of trouble, can I?” she murmured. 

Steve smirked in that way of his when he was being a smartass. He did his best to shrug with his good shoulder but it only made him wince. “Eh, what can I say? It just seems to follow me.”

“Always leaving me to come rescue you.”

He grabbed her hand red with his blood and kissed the unblemished skin on the back of it. “I like being the damsel in distress. I like it when my knight in shining armor comes to save me.”

Peggy hummed happily but said nothing. Steve smirked to himself; she didn’t have to say anything. The smile teasing at the corner of her lips told him everything he needed to know. She continued on with her work, her busy hands moving with an efficiency Steve had always admired. 

“I wouldn’t mind settling down a little bit, though,” Steve continued on quietly. His eyes held steady on her face but she kept hers glued to his side. Undeterred, he continued. “Being rescued a little less. Picking less fights.”

“You’d get bored.”

“Yeah, probably. But I’m sure we’d find ways to get into trouble together.”

“You mean you’ll run off and find another fight to get into and I’ll have to go traipsing after you.”

“Hey!”

She laughed and shook her hand free to continue with her work. His hand settled on her lower back, his fingers clenching the fabric of her shirt. A thought coming to him, he tugged a little to get her attention.

“Maybe I’ll find a different kind of trouble to get into. Maybe some little feet to chase and clean up after.”

Her fingers stumbled a little but she tried not to make it noticeable. 

Gathering herself, Peggy cleared her throat and leaned in close to his face. The warm weight of his hand pressed firmly on her back helped stabilize her. 

“I do not see a ring on my finger, Captain Steven Grant Rogers,” he grumbled at the use of his full name, “and I am not losing my figure until it is properly adorned, thank you very much.”

Peggy knew she wanted children but she didn’t think she was ready for them just yet. They’d only just put the war behind them. She wanted time for just her and Steve, just the two of them alone in their own home. Once they acquired said home, that was. The loss of her figure didn’t bother her much but the loss of her career did. She knew what having children meant for most women and she wasn’t about to join the ranks just yet.

Steve lifted his head and caught her lips with his. She gave into the feeling of his dry, soft lips caressing hers.

‘Just for a little bit,’ she told herself. ‘Don’t get carried away.’

She pulled away first, the voices of their friends somewhere down the hall reminding her they weren’t completely isolated. 

“We have time,” he murmured, his warm breathing caressing her face in his proximity. 

They both knew he was speaking of the children and not the proposal. 

“Plenty of time,” she agreed. She placed a chaste kiss to his lips before resuming her work. 

“Guess I won’t be bunking in this room.”

Peggy paused in her ministrations and glanced over to see Thompson standing just over the threshold. She was tired of always looking up to see Thompson lurking in the background. 

Steve didn’t move from his position but Peggy could feel the tension in his body. It mirrored the annoyance she felt in hers.

“May we help you, Agent Thompson? Did you sustain a wound in the firefight that needs stitching?”

Peggy looked him dead in the eye, both well aware he was untouched by the fight. She could see his jaw clench tight but she didn’t lower her gaze. 

“No, I’m good,” he needlessly assured them. 

“Fantastic.” The sarcasm in her voice was thinly disguised. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Don’t mind me.” Thompson held his hands up and took a step back, a dangerous smirk on his face. “You know, I always did figure you’d be on top, Carter.”

A blur of flesh and a gust of air whipped past Peggy’s face. She lost her balance and toppled onto the floor. She looked over just in time to see Steve lifting Thompson off the floor.

“Steve!”

But he didn’t hear her. 

All Steve could hear was the blood surging through his ears at the anger he felt for this man. He didn’t think he’d ever hated someone so much after only one day together. 

Thompson’s feet dangled in the air, his hands clawing at Steve’s in a desperate attempt to try and remove them from digging any further into his throat. 

“I know how it is with guys like you,” Steve seethed lowly, his voice dangerously controlled. “You see a woman and assume the only reason she’s around is to do your bidding in whatever way pleases you.”

He brought his face even closer to the struggling man.

“That woman saved your life today. She’s saved all of our lives at least once. She is a soldier just like you and just like me. She is not there to fetch your coffee or your lunch or answer your phone calls. She is an agent with the SSR. You don’t have to like her but you damn well better show a lady some respect. Is that understood?”

Thompson nodded his head as best he could. His face looked panicked, a look that, in this instance, gave Steve a perverse pleasure. 

Dugan and Monty popped their heads into the doorway. Monty looked worried while Dugan looked ready to watch a prize fight. 

“Everything okay here, Cap?” Monty asked cautiously.

“Yeah,” Steve assured them, his eyes never leaving Thompson’s. “Just had a little disagreement is all.”

The two men turned their eyes to Peggy now standing by the bench. She shook her head and rolled her eyes at the display but said nothing. She made a gesture with her hands; Dugan nodded in understanding. 

“Hey, uh, Thompson, was it? There’s a spot open for grabs in a room down the hall. I think you’d be perfect for it.”

Monty pushed lightly on Steve’s hand until he released the man in his grasp. Thompson’s feet hit the floor. His hands went to his throat while he gasped for air. He kept his eyes on the ground as Dugan and Monty escorted him from the room. 

Steve clenched his fists as he watched them leave. He panted hard through his nostrils like a bull in the ring, his brow creased and his mind struggling to release the anger he felt. When he felt he had control of himself, he slowly turned to face Peggy. He felt the needle and thread swinging against his side.

She stood there with her hands on her hips and an angry expression on her face. Steve felt his anger being replaced with fear.

“If you’ve popped those stitches, I’m going to be very cross with you.”

He hoped a charming smile would make her change her mind.


	6. Chapter 6

“I would have thought you’d be asleep like the rest.”

Steve glanced up as Peggy sat down next to him. She’d left to make sure Maria was comfortable enough with what little accommodation they could offer her. Maria had assured she was quite all right and would be making the most of the long flight ahead of them to catch up on much needed sleep. 

“Peggy, I cannot ever thank you enough for rescuing me,” Maria had told her. She’d clasped Peggy’s hands between her own and looked at her with an expression so earnest, Peggy had had to look away. 

“There will be a place in the SSR for you if you’d like,” Peggy had assured her. Maria told her she looked forward to working with Peggy for the foreseeable future.

After that, she’d gotten a little side tracked making sure the others were all right. She’d helped Morita change Dugan’s bandages, threatening him with further bodily harm if he didn’t stay still during the process. He’d quickly stopped his fidgeting. 

Ramirez had been dead to the world when she walked past him near the front of the plane, his mouth hanging wide open from his snores. Thompson was next to him. His eyes had been heavy lidded when she’d been making her rounds. His left arm was being cradled against his body, perhaps reassuring himself he was fine. He had met her eyes as she walked past him and held them there.

She had seen a million things cross his eyes – disbelief, disappointment, shame, gratitude, relief. They were common emotions found in a soldier’s eyes at one point or another. Peggy was no stranger to seeing them in others. Or herself.

“Nah, I can’t sleep just yet.”

“Is your side bothering you? I told you not to help load the gear.” 

Her hands made the motions to reach for him and her bag at the same time, reaching for the supplies she’d need to check his wound. 

His laughter stopped her. “Peggy, it’s fine. You changed the bandage thirty minutes ago. I heal fast, but not that fast. No, I guess I just got lost in my thoughts.”

“A dangerous occupation for some.” 

Her attempt at humor was lost on him. 

His eyes were glossy on her face, lost in thought. He cleared his throat a few times. Peggy would have been nervous of his thoughts if she didn’t know him so well. She gave him the time he needed to gather his words.

“We were helping liberate a camp last year and this girl came up to me. We weren’t really helping; we just happened to be crossing paths and I couldn’t go any further when I saw these people. We stayed and helped do whatever we could for them.

“Anyway, this girl - she was young, maybe eleven or twelve. She thanked me for freeing her and her family. I told her it was nothing; that I was sorry this had happened to them. It wasn’t fair. She said she didn’t have an adequate way to thank me. When I told her it wasn’t necessary, I wasn’t the only one responsible for ending the war, she took this off her hand and gave it to me.” 

Peggy’s eyes followed Steve’s hand as he pulled a small bundle from an interior pocket of his suit. Her brow knitted in confusion as he fumbled with a small pouch. The object that tumbled out into his bare hand made the air leave her lungs. In the center of a thin silver band sat three square cut sapphires surrounded by four small diamonds in each corner of the diamond pattern. 

“They hadn’t gotten around to taking it from her yet because she’d been captured the day before the war ended. She said her mom gave it to her to keep her safe like it had done for her grandmother and herself. I tried to give it back but she insisted. She told me it was my turn to keep it safe because she was finally free, that she could stop hiding in the shadows.”

Peggy swallowed roughly but her throat felt like someone had stuffed cotton in it. Her vocabulary had left her brain, probably residing in the same place as her saliva. 

He smirked to himself, his eyes still on the ring. “I told her I didn’t think it was my size but I knew someone special who could keep it safe for me.”

Her mouth gapped open like a fish but words failed her. 

“What was her name?” Peggy croaked out after several long seconds.

“Amina.” Steve reached across her lap for her hand – her left hand, her mind noted. The ring slipped through his fingers before he slowly slid it onto her ring finger. It fit perfectly. The cold metal was a shock to her system, a strange but perfect sensation. She felt his eyes move to her face but she couldn’t look away from the ring in all its glistening glory. “I was hoping you could keep this safe for me. Maybe it’ll keep you safe when I’m not around. Not that you need protecting. I mean, I know you can protect yourself but a little extra luck nev…”

She cut off his rambling with a hand over his mouth. “I’d love to.”

Her eyes found his like a magnet, unable to resist the pull of him any longer. What she saw there took her breath away. 

This man loved her. 

With everything in him, he loved her. She had known from the moment he threw his body on that grenade that he was the only man for her. 

There was no right partner for her other than Steve Rogers. 

Her lips met his halfway. Her kiss was firm as she tried to convey everything she was feeling. The emotions from the last few days were crashing down on her, intensified by this singular moment. She gratefully gave in to him when his tongue brushed across her bottom lip, giving in to his wants and satisfying her needs. She didn’t care if anyone saw them; doubted he did either. The need to be close to him was too strong to worry about propriety and secrets. 

Mindful of his side, she kept her hands tangled in the straps on the front of his suit. He pushed her body flush against his regardless of how it made his body ache. He barely noticed it compared to her warmth and softness. 

She pulled back first but didn’t go far. She pressed her forehead against his as a thought occurred to her.

“Did you really just propose to me on an airplane?”

Steve looked incredibly proud of himself as he nodded broadly. “Yeah, I did.” He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth. “It just felt right. I’ve spent a… pathetic amount of time trying to find the perfect moment.”

She gazed at him sweetly. “We’ve known each other for four years. Did you really think I’d say no?” she whispered.

Steve shrugged but a sheepish grin remained. 

“No, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have been perfect.” 

She captured his lips for a long searching kiss in response. 

“And I knew I had to ask before you got down on one knee in the middle of the Stork Club.” He inched his torso back and put a hand on his chest. She bit a smile back at the playful twinkle in his eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t have minded. I probably would have started bawling my eyes out right there but I can be pretty hard to please. I would have expected too much – flowers, candles, tons of dancing.”

“You are always so dramatic, Captain Rogers,” she interrupted, her tone fondly exasperated but her wide smile gave away her true feelings. She loved his dramatics. Even if his more dangerous ones did sometimes make her want to pull out her own hair. 

“I have to be,” he said. His voice was tender and his touch even softer. His fingers traced a path from her ear lobe to her collar before tugging at her chin to pull her mouth to his. “Can’t have you growing bored with me.”

“Never.”


End file.
